The Importance of a Good Read

My wife went to test drive a new car on the weekend. She thought that the staff in the dealership were amongst the nicest car dealers she had spoken to. She thought that the price of the vehicle she tried was reasonable, and was quite competitive compared to other cars that she’d seen. She enjoyed the test drive and was quite happy to ask pertinent questions of the sales man in terms of extras, finance agreements and so on.

We left there with lots of literature giving us facts and figures.

She doesn’t want to buy the car.

But this blog is not about the car – it’s actually about the literature. Right now there is a brochure shoved inside the passenger side door of my car. It won’t get read again, and what’s worse is that it didn’t even get read in the first place, and this got me thinking.

As I prepare to go on my holiday at the end of this week, I’ve been making a point of calling all of those companies who asked me to send them some information. So far, not one of them has given me any business. I’m not bitter about that – frankly I accept it as the way of the world, but it does strike me just how many of us are wasting a fortune on printing up information that will never get read.

Think about the last time you were committed to seriously making an important purchase. I’m not talking about browsing or being ‘on the fence’ – I’m talking about seeing something, liking it, reaching into your wallet and actually buying it.

How much literature did you check out first? What did you do about all of the important questions that you had to ask? Did you consult with the brochure or the sales person?

These days, many of us will go online to check out reviews of certain new products before we buy, and if we’re lucky enough to find an impartial review, so much the better. But that’s all we need to read. The rest of the sale requires a personal interaction between you, the product and the person selling it.

I’ve written in the past about how ‘polite’ people ask us to send out information as a means to simply get sales people off of the phone, but it seems that there are a group of people who would rather hand over a brochure than have a real conversation, and as a salesman myself, I just don’t get it.

My recycling bin is filled with catalogues I will never read, and yet the people sending them never even bothered to ask me – they just spent their money and hoped for the best. Well I don’t work that way. If you ask me for a catalogue, I’ll make a point of asking you what it is you’re looking for and then I’ll talk with you about it – trust me, it’s better for everyone that way.

Right – that’s the last blog for a couple of weeks. I’m off to Israel with the family, and just so we’re clear, I didn’t pick the hotel out of a brochure!